Ville Leino (23), who was given a fat six-year contract and has produced only three goals and eight assists, is one of the posterboys for a Sabres season filled with deep slumps, injuries and big disappointment. (Michael Dwyer/AP)

By Stu Hackel

One of the NHL’s biggest mysteries this season, the collapse of the Buffalo Sabres, could result in some big changes. It doesn’t appear as if the jobs of GM Darcy Regier and coach Lindy Ruff are in jeopardy, but some players may soon be on the move.

That was the strong hit delivered by Sabres President Ted Black during  All-Star Weekend when he told John Vogl of The Buffalo News that while he supported the work of the team’s hockey department, “Our commitment is to winning, not to any particular group of players that are labeled as a core. Take that for what it’s worth.”

We’ll take that to mean that the Sabres will be sellers at, or prior to, the trade deadline.

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Sidney Crosby’s injury is the most high-profile on the Penguins, who lead the NHL in man-games lost to injury. Yet they’re still winning, which isn’t true of other similarly battered teams. (Jeanine Leech/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

It’s back to work for the NHL after a long weekend of All-Star frivolity. But even amidst the laughs, pranks and ridiculous amounts of skill coming out of Ottawa, the cloud of injury — to players’ brains and otherwise — continued to darken the league’s sunny skies.

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Blue Jackets fans have had little to cheer since the team’s first season in 2000-01. (Terry Gilliam/AP)

By Stu Hackel

As this unusually calamitous NHL season pauses for a few days, the bleary eyes of the hockey world will try to focus on the big All-Star Weekend party in Ottawa. But about 650 miles to the southwest, a much smaller hockey gathering on Saturday will be less jovial. In fact, it will be somewhat angry.

In front of Nationwide Arena in Columbus, perhaps a few hundred fans will gather to protest the state of the Blue Jackets, the league’s worst team and a franchise that has never really achieved much of anything. They want team president Mike Priest and GM Scott Howson replaced — things that owner John P. McConnell told Aaron Portzline of The Columbus Dispatch in Friday’s edition he is not contemplating — and they want a fresh start for a team that had only 13 wins in 49 games before the break. This stands to become the Blue Jackets’ worst season yet.

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Jochen Hecht of the Sabres is experiencing scary concussion symptoms that have alarmed his team. (Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

When we spoke with Ken Dryden for our post earlier this week on concussions, he proposed an annual conference on head injuries that would involve every aspect of the hockey community. The first item on his ideal agenda would be to hear from those who have suffered concussions and give these players a chance to “tell their stories, very simply. This is what it’s like, this is the impact, these are the consequences, these are the stakes.”  That would certainly open the proceedings with an emotional wallop.

That was on our mind when we came across an item by John Vogl in The Buffalo News about center Jochen Hecht of the Sabres being concussed in Saturday’s game against the Blues, but the symptoms not emerging until Tuesday at practice.

“He’s not good,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said after Tuesday’s game in New Jersey. “Wasn’t feeling bad [Monday]. He took a hit from [T.J.] Oshie in St. Louis, kind of an elbow — and came off [Tuesday] and he was a mess. He couldn’t focus. Emotionally, he was really unstable. He’s in a tough place right now. We’re worried. … To come off and be the way he was tells you that there’s something wrong.”

That’s scary stuff. This is Hecht’s second concussion of the season and third in less than a year. As we know, each one makes the victim more vulnerable in the future and potentially makes the reaction more severe.  We wish him well. As Dryden said, “This is an ongoing thing. It’s not something that’s random bad luck. This is tomorrow unless you start finding a way to make a better tomorrow.”

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The NHL All-Star Game was once a stage for Alexander Ovechkin’s fun-loving persona and electric skills. (Lou Capozzola/SI; Bruce Bennett/Getty Images; AP)

By Stu Hackel

Fans of the Detroit Red Wings may be a bit puzzled today by NHL justice. Three years ago, Wings stars Nick Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk were suspended by the NHL for one game when they declined to take part in the All-Star festivities in Montreal. But yesterday, Capitals star Alex Ovechkin declined to take part in the upcoming All-Star festivities in Ottawa and he’s not going to be punished.

Well, actually, Ovie’s already suspended (more on that below), but not for the All-Star Game. He still could have gone to Ottawa and participated, but he elected not to. Yet, he’ll face no discipline. And the reason seems to be, well, that things have changed with regard to the All-Star Game.

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Tim Thomas’s decision to not attend the White House ceremony honoring his team violated a principle. (Graig Abel/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

By now you probably know that the Boston Bruins visited the White House on Monday, as the champions of all major sports do, and that their star goalie elected not to attend. Tim Thomas stated his reasons on his Facebook page and he’s been hailed by some as a hero for standing on principle. But, in a very important way, he was wrong — and hockey fans who applaud him for his principles are wrong to support him.

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Will there come a time when people look back and wonder why more wasn’t done to stop concussions? (Chaz Palla/AP)

By Stu Hackel

It was another bad week for concussions in the NHL. Sidney Crosby, who many hoped would be back in the Penguins’ lineup by now, is still unable to practice. Unsure of his return, he sought help from a specialist in Atlanta and is seeing another in California. Center Danny Briere was concussed in Saturday’s game against the Devils. He’s the sixth Flyer to suffer that injury this season.  Teammate James van Riemsdyk is still sidelined; Chris Pronger is out for the rest of the season, maybe longer, and his wife Lauren went public with their struggles (video). The Jets’ leading goal scorer, Evander Kane, joined the ranks late last week. The Bruins’ Marc Savard (photo above), whose career is in doubt after repeated concussions, disclosed the problems he’s having with headaches and memory.

When 28 players were concussed in December, we titled our post on the subject  ”An Awful Month for NHL Concussions.” The way Hockey Hall of Famer Ken Dryden sees it, however, it would be a mistake to believe that this epidemic of head injuries is a temporary condition, and that the game will get past it the way one gets over a cold. We’re better off thinking that this painful situation is the way things in the NHL will continue to be.

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By Stu Hackel

Whoever MAKAVELI719696 is, he/she has created something of a YouTube sensation with the video above.
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Goalies can be like Mama Gump’s box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get — and that’s been very true for the St. Louis Blues with Brian Elliott (left) this season. (Minas Panagiotakis/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

The news from St. Louis that the Blues have rewarded Brian Elliott with a two-year contract extension sparked a few thoughts about goaltending in general and the Blues in particular.

There is no official NHL award for comeback player of the year, and even if there was, Elliott might not actually be a good choice because his earlier incarnation as a goalie for the Ottawa Senators produced only one good season (29-18-4, 2.57 goals-againt average and .909 save percentage with five shutouts in 2009-10) and a few not so good ones. But his work so far this season (15-5-1, 1.68 and .937) has him swimming with the big fish of NHL netminders, namely The Bruins’ Tim Thomas, the Predators’ Pekka Rinne and the Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist. (SI.com’s Michael Farber looked at Elliott’s emergence in a recent column.)

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After all is said and done, as goes Alex Ovechkin, so go the Caps. (Mitchell Layton/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

Yesterday, we looked at a Western team, the San Jose Sharks, who remain a perennial postseason disappointment although their recent record may be encouraging but also a bit deceiving. Today we’ll look at a similar team in the East: the Washington Capitals.

Before being shut out by the struggling  New York Islanders, 3-0, on Tuesday night, the Caps had won seven of their last nine games and the hype machine had begun buzzing that Washington was back, or at least on the way back, to being an NHL powerhouse. But if you saw how lethargic and sloppy the Caps played on home ice — taking only 17 shots against a more energetic team that was playing the second game of a back-to-back and is, after all, the 14th-place Islanders — you’ve got to have some reservations.

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